In Mike We Trust (4 page)

At the restaurant they sat beneath myriad stained-glass ceiling lamps, beside an exposed-brick wall divided by ancient beams. Garth's mom said for maybe the fourth time how nice it was that Mike was treating them, and he encouraged her—and Garth—to “order large.” She ordered a salad and her favorite food: scallops. Garth ordered a shrimp cocktail and, at Mike's prodding, a steak. Mike had the same. He told more stories about his past during the meal; he mimicked the voices of the characters he'd encountered, his hands and face animated, and piled one anecdote on top of another. Garth's mom seemed to loosen up, and
laughed more than he'd seen her laugh in a long time. It made him even more glad that Mike was going to stick around for a little while. They left the restaurant stuffed and happy. Strolling down the cobblestone streets of Shockoe Bottom with his tie expertly knotted around his neck, Garth felt like someone other than himself. Or maybe he just felt
happy
for the first time in a long while.

“I have a surprise for you guys,” Mike said as they were pulling up in front of the apartment in his mom's station wagon. “It's in my car. I'll meet you in a sec.”

Garth and his mom went inside, sat in the living room, and waited. When Mike came in, he was holding a shoe box with a rubber band around it.

“I've had these for years. They're of me and Jerry. I thought you might like to have them.” He sat in the armchair next to the couch and handed Garth's mom the box.

“Oh, Mike,” she said, “are you sure?”

“I have more. You guys should have these.”

“Well—thank you.” She took the rubber band off, lifted the lid, and began sifting through the snapshots, passing them to Garth one at a time. “They're wonderful. I have maybe one picture from Jerry's childhood. I think it's of him on a swing set, wearing striped pants.”

“I remember that swing set,” Mike said. “We got it for our fourth birthday.”

“These really are priceless.” She handed snapshot after snapshot to Garth, who collected them all in his lap, absorbing the images. How strange to see his grandmother slim and smooth-skinned and dark haired. Stranger, still, to see so many pictures of the two interchangeable boys. As they neared the bottom of the box, Garth was conscious of the fact that there wasn't a single picture of them together in adulthood. The most recent photo was of the two of them standing side by side at what looked to be a carnival. They weren't boys, but they weren't quite men yet, either. Maybe seniors in high school. Garth could easily tell them apart at that age, even though they were “identical.” His dad was on the left, his arms folded across his chest. Mike was on the right, hands buried in his pockets. Neither one of them was smiling. If it weren't for the fact that they were twins, they might have looked like two strangers in a crowd.

T
he next morning, after Garth's mom left for work, Mike continued to make himself at home. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and spent a couple of hours on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, clicking through the four television stations they got with what seemed to be a sense of curiosity rather than a need for entertainment—as if he were observing an entirely new culture. “Who's the guy on the horse?” he asked while he was watching the local news. “They keep cutting to that same statue before they go to a commercial.”

Garth was just coming back into the room, his arms filled with dirty laundry—the next item on his list of chores. It almost felt as if he had a lazy older brother in the house rather than an uncle—but he was happy that Mike felt comfortable here, and glad for the company. “That's Robert E. Lee.”

“Really? What's he, the town mascot?”

“Pretty much.”

“I would have thought that'd be what's-his-name. The Lincoln counterpart.”

“Jefferson Davis?”

“Him,” Mike said.

Garth shrugged. “He's got a statue, too. A couple of them. But Lee's is bigger.”

“It's all about size,” Mike said.

Garth carried the laundry into the kitchen, where the stacked washer/dryer unit was tucked into a tiny closet. He'd just turned on the washing machine—it rattled like an old boiler against the confines of the surrounding walls—when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Okay, so my mom isn't devoting
all
her energy to telling me I'll never make a dime off my art, and for the first time in my life I'm thankful to have a dumb hick for a brother.”

“Hi, Lisa.”

“Jason got his girlfriend pregnant!”

“
What?
”

“Yep. He can waste a year in college and end up with only six credits and they don't bat an eye, but
this,
my friend, has rocked the house.”

“What's he going to do?”

“Well, he actually
wants
to ‘settle down.' As in get married, get a job at a gas station or whatever, and become a dad. But my parents are hinting around at a whole nother course of action.”

“Meaning…”

“One guess, Einstein.”

“They suggested it outright?”

“Suggested it? They offered to pay for it!”

“Well, what about his girlfriend? Doesn't
Stacey
have a say in this? It's her body, after all.”

“That's what I told my parents! I got that leave-the-room look they give me whenever the crisis is about Jason and not me. God forbid we ever both get into trouble at the same time.”

“When have you ever been in trouble?”

“Hello? Last summer? The Nude Descending the Monkey Bars shoot I did of Taylor Markson?”

“Oh, yeah. I'm still waiting for my copies of that, by the way.”

“Won't happen. Taylor made me promise, and my parents confiscated the negatives. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out, because I don't think Stacy's that into Jason, but I think she
is
into keeping the baby. So what's up with you?”

“Not much. Chores, mainly.”

“Are we still going to hang out at my place this afternoon?”

“Definitely. I'll call before I come over.”

“I'll be the one
without
the pregnant girlfriend.”

They hung up, and he rechecked his list. He'd saved
the worst for last: the hedges. The front and back yards of the house were shared by all the tenants, but the landlord shaved thirty dollars off the rent for Garth to take care of basic outside maintenance, including the grass and the hedges. The grass was easy, just a few swipes with the mower, since there was almost no yard to speak of. But the hedges that lined both sides of the yard were a pain—especially in the dead heat of summer. He descended into the musky, cobwebbed basement and took the hedge clippers from the nail next to the fuse box. He was coming back up when he heard Mike's voice through the kitchen window: “You've got nothing to worry about, Stu. I talked to Marty, and he's going to have a money order in the mail within a month. Well, that was the arrangement made between Marty and Phil, so maybe you should talk to Marty yourself. He seemed fine with it, last I heard. Yeah. Talk to him. Talk to
Phil,
if you want. I'm sticking to what we agreed on. All right. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Later.”

Garth hesitated next to the window and peeked in. His uncle was punching another number into his cell phone.

“Marty? It's Mike…. Mike Rudd, who do you think?…It doesn't
matter
where I am. Listen, you know that juggling we talked about? Does Phil know about it? Well, you might want to do some fast footwork
because Stu's going to be calling you, and if he can't get hold of you, there's a good chance he's going to be calling Phil directly…. Hey, the juggle was
your
idea…. Yes, it was…. Well, maybe my memory's better than yours. Anyway, I'm out of the loop at this stage—well, I'm
practically
out of the loop. You know what I mean. The point is, you should be expecting a call from Stu and you might want to head it off at the pass. Listen, I've got to go. I'll be in touch, okay?”

Mike sounded more like a loan shark than a gambler. Garth was curious but thought it best not to ask. He ducked under the window and carried the clippers out into the yard.

He'd worked three-quarters of the way around the perimeter when Mike stepped outside. The screen fell away as he pushed open the door. “Whoa!” he said, catching it with one hand.

“Sorry,” Garth called from across the yard. “It does that. The tape is old.”

“It needs one of those…what's it called?”

“A new door?”

“Ha—no, I mean one of those…things to fix it with. Rubber piping and a whatsit.” He pushed at the tape until the screen was back in place, then crossed the yard to where Garth was clipping. Hutch lay stretched out on the grass nearby. Mike reached down and
picked up a ratty tennis ball—one of Hutch's toys—and waved it at the dog. He tossed it across the yard into the dead garden, and the spaniel got up, lumbered over, and retrieved it, but didn't bring it back. “You're working up a sweat, there.”

“We get a discount on the rent if I do this,” Garth explained, wiping a hand over his brow. “I mow the lawn, too.”

“Here,” Mike said, “let me take over for a while.”

“You don't have to do that. I'm almost done.”

But Mike insisted, and took the clippers out of his hands. He clipped with a flair—one or two branches at a time. Even so, he seemed to move along at a pace that at least matched if not surpassed Garth's. “Your mom tells me money's been pretty tight lately.”

“Yeah. That's why I took my job—so she wouldn't have to shell out spending money for me. I'm trying to save a little of what I'm making, too. You know, for emergencies. Mom already works two jobs,” Garth said.

“There are ways outside the…traditional channels to make a buck.” He continued to work the clippers across the last hedge.

Garth moved along with him, his hands in his pockets. “What, like rob a bank?”

“No!” Mike laughed. “I'm just talking about less
traditional, more creative ways to generate income.” Finished, he stepped back and eyeballed the hedge with his thumb raised before his eyes, as if gazing at a painting in progress. “Rob a bank,” he repeated, chuckling. “That's a good one. What do you say we rake this stuff up and make some lunch?”

Hutch knew the word
lunch
. He let go of the tennis ball and started for the house.

 

There was bread in the cabinet. Bologna and American cheese and mayo in the fridge. Garth pulled all these out and laid them on the counter, then got down two plates.

“Hold that thought,” Mike said, washing his hands in the sink and eyeing the food. “Let's explore.”

Garth was pretty certain there was nothing to explore in their kitchen. But he let Mike go at it while he moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer.

Mike went through each of the cabinets and plumbed the depths of the refrigerator. He found a box of pasta shells and set a pot of water on the stove. As the shells cooked, he stirred up the contents of two cans of tuna fish, some chopped olives, and a tomato. He discovered a block of Parmesan cheese and a cheese grater Garth didn't even know they owned. Canned asparagus. Sweet pickles. It seemed to take no time at
all to prepare, and yet there it was: a lunch that could have been served in a restaurant. “Let's eat in the living room,” Mike suggested. “That dryer's turned the kitchen into a sauna.”

They set their plates on the coffee table and sat on the carpet on either side of it. Hutch positioned himself between them. When Mike set one of his pickles on the table in front of Hutch's snout, the dog gobbled it up.

Garth took a swig of soda. “What sort of graphic design do you know? Web pages?”

“How'd you know I did graphic design?”

Oops.
He'd learned that eavesdropping. He cleared his throat and said, “Mom told me. So is it mainly Web page stuff?”

“Sad truth of it is the technology's probably left me behind now. I don't know why I got the degree; I'm never going to chain myself to a company. Not that knowing the basics doesn't come in handy now and then.” He pointed across the coffee table at Garth in a mock-dramatic way. “And not that education isn't important.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Garth said. He knew that was true, but at the same time he admired Mike's take on life, how he lived it exactly the way he wanted to, despite the “norm”—the very qualities Garth's dad hadn't
approved of. But maybe his dad never really got to know Mike as an adult.

“How about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you like to do—besides build boat models? Go to movies? Read? Fight the girls off with a stick?”

Garth hesitated, mid-chew. “I don't fight them off with a stick.”

“A good-looking guy like you? Come on. You've got the Rudd genes.
You
might have twins, you know.”

“You think?”

Mike nodded. “They tend to skip a generation, and you're the generation that got skipped.” He stuffed a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “Oh, I get it. You don't fight the girls off; you let them have you. Smart man.”

Family,
Garth thought.
He's family. If I tell him I'm not breaking the promise, right?

Mike
seemed
worldly enough not to flip out about it. Plus, he couldn't bear the thought of two, possibly three weeks with his uncle in the house making the same occasional, straight nudge-nudge remarks he had to endure at school. He took a swallow of soda so enormous it burned his throat and said, “I don't plan on having kids, actually.”

“No? Bachelor for life, like me?”

“I'm not into girls.”

He saw the grin leave his uncle's mouth for just a moment. Mike studied him, narrowing his eyes, as if reassessing him as a person. Then, slowly, the grin returned and he began to nod his head yes. “All right,” he said. “That's cool. I like somebody who…knows what he likes.”

“Really? You're okay with it?”

Mike shrugged. “Why wouldn't I be? I have gay friends.”

“You
do
?”

He laughed. “We're talking about people, not Martians. What is it, nine, ten percent of the world is gay? Probably more than that, if truth be told. Of course I have gay friends.
You've
got gay friends, right?”

Garth felt his face redden. “Actually, I don't. My friend Lisa does, though.”

“Well, why aren't her friends your friends?”

“Because…”

“You're not out to her.”

“No, it's not that.” Suddenly, the topic felt too complicated to articulate, even though he thought about it all the time. He was beginning to doubt whether or not he should have said anything. What was that phrase Mr. Mosier had used in chemistry class?
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Lisa knows. But then I told Mom,
and she freaked out and made me promise not to tell anyone else. Outside the family, I mean. So you don't count. But then I couldn't tell her I told Lisa, and I had to tell Lisa not to tell anyone. It's kind of a mess.”

“Wait—your mom freaked out that you're gay?”

“She's just…hyperworried I'll get beaten up or something.” He went on to give his uncle a condensed version of the argument they'd had.

Mike took it all in with a puzzled look on his face. “How can someone be expected to ‘shelve' his sexuality for three years? Someone who isn't confused, that is.”

Garth felt a wave of relief wash over him. Mike's reaction was the same as Lisa's had been, but it was different—and good—to hear it from an adult. And a relative, no less. It almost felt like he was hearing it from his dad.

“You never told your dad, did you?” Mike asked, reading his mind again.

Garth shook his head.

“I wonder how your mom would have reacted if your dad was here. Obviously, part of her reaction is the fact that she's still dealing with the accident. She's grieving, I get that. But I also wonder how she might have dealt with your…announcement…if she had another person—your dad—here to talk about it with.”

“Yeah,” Garth said.

“Hey.” Mike reached across the coffee table and tapped Garth's shoulder. “I'm glad you told me.”

“Really?”

“You confided in me. I take that as a compliment. Thanks.”

Garth couldn't help but smile. “You're welcome.”

 

A little while later, Mike tapped on the door to Garth's room and asked him if they had a toolbox. They'd had several—his dad had been quite a tool collector, having owned two different hardware stores—but the toolboxes were in storage. The walk-in unit his mom had rented was like a microcosm of their former life. It was stacked with furniture from their old house that wouldn't fit in the apartment, crammed with cartons of knickknacks and lamps, and, worst of all, filled with box after box of his dad's shirts, pants, and shoes (his mom had eventually brought herself to clean out the closet, but hadn't been able to give the clothes away). Garth had been in the storage unit only once since they'd filled it, and walking into that dank, crowded square of corrugated steel had felt like entering a tomb. An extension of his dad's grave.